Wes Anderson’s Next Film Is A “Dark” Father/Daughter Espionage Movie Starring Benicio Del Toro

Wes Anderson’s latest, Asteroid City (review here), is in theaters now and doing quite well. His fans are turning out in droves for it, as they’re likely to do for the long haul. Fortunately for them, Anderson is working at the fastest clip of his career. He’s already his upcoming 37-minute Netflix movie, Roald Dahl’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, and Anderson is also dropping details on his next feature.

Speaking with LeMonde in France, Anderson revealed that his next movie will be a father/daughter spy story, and it’ll star Benicio Del Toro, who he worked with once on The French Dispatch

“My next feature film will be linear, with Benicio Del Toro in every shot. I can’t tell you much more than that except that it will be about espionage, a father-daughter relationship, and, let’s say, with a rather dark tone.”

A “dark tone”? That’s interesting, especially given the pastel-colored Asteroid City. But maybe it suits the “linear” style that Anderson is turning to, after his most recent films have been anthology or meta or both…

“With ‘The French Dispatch’ (2021), I’d always wanted to do an anthology [film],” Anderson said. “I had certain ones that I loved like Max Ophüls’ ‘La Ronde’ (1950) and ‘Le Plaisir’ (‘House of Pleasure,’ 1952) and Vittorio De Sica’s ‘L’Or de Naples’ (‘The Gold of Naples,’ 1954). ‘Asteroid City,’ I feel it’s all mixed together. The theater and the cinema part of it are meant to communicate, and it is meant to be one thing.

This actually sounds like an Anderson project I can get excited about. But do Anderson’s fans want him to do something that sounds so different?

 

Travis Hopson has been reviewing movies before he even knew there was such a thing. Having grown up on a combination of bad '80s movies, pro wrestling, comic books, and hip-hop, Travis is uniquely positioned to geek out on just about everything under the sun. A vampire who walks during the day and refuses to sleep, Travis is the co-creator and lead writer for Punch Drunk Critics. He is also a contributor to Good Morning Washington, WBAL Morning News, and WETA Around Town. In the five minutes a day he's not working, Travis is also a voice actor, podcaster, and Twitch gamer. Travis is a voting member of the Critics Choice Association (CCA), Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and Late Night programmer for the Lakefront Film Festival.